Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coffee maker including a water tank that stores water, a heating and hot water supply mechanism that heats the water supplied from the water tank so as to generate hot water, and that supplies the generated hot water via a guide passage, an extraction unit that extracts a coffee liquid by receiving the hot water supplied from the heating and hot water supply mechanism, in a state of containing coffee powder, and a server that stores the coffee liquid extracted in the extraction unit.
Description of Related Art
A coffee maker having this configuration can store a coffee liquid in a server in such a way that a user operates an extracting switch in a state where water is supplied to a water tank and coffee powder is contained in an extraction unit.
Here, the coffee liquid stored in the server is extracted in the extraction unit after hot water is supplied from a heating and hot water supply mechanism, thereby providing so-called hot coffee (coffee liquid in a heated state).
When in use, the user puts a predetermined amount of coffee powder into the extraction unit in accordance with the user's desired number of cups, and pours the water into the water tank to reach the amount corresponding to the same number of cups. In this manner, a predetermined amount of hot coffee liquid can be obtained. The concentration of the coffee liquid can be adjusted by adjusting the amount of water poured into the water tank (in a case where the water poured into the water tank is always used up), or by adjusting the amount of the water supplied from the water tank via the heating and hot water supply mechanism (in a case where a dispensing amount of the water inside the water tank is adjustable).
With regard to the coffee maker which can obtain this hot coffee, Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 2 disclose a coffee maker which can also obtain iced coffee.
A technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 relates to a “coffee machine”, and the coffee machine includes an ice storage rack 12 (corresponding to an ice basket in the present Patent Application) inside a decanter 7 (corresponding to a server in the present Patent Application). The iced coffee can be obtained by delivering the coffee liquid dripping from a chamber 6 (corresponding to an extraction unit in the present Patent Application) containing the coffee powder to a surface of ice stored inside the ice storage rack 12.
A technology disclosed in Patent Document 2 relates to a “dripping coffee machine which also provides iced coffee”, and the machine includes a basket 15 (corresponding to the ice basket in the present Patent Application) inside a coffee bottle 9 (corresponding to the server in the present Patent Application). The iced coffee can be obtained by delivering the coffee liquid dripping from a filter 10 (corresponding to the extraction unit in the present Patent Application) containing the coffee powder to a surface of ice stored inside the basket 15.
Both technologies can obtain iced coffee by causing the coffee liquid in a heated state to drip from the extraction unit including the ice basket. However, the ice basket has a shallow shape whose bottom portion is located in a central portion of the server from a bottom surface of the server. It is understood that the ice inside the basket is not immersed in the obtained coffee liquid.
Furthermore, the coffee liquid is not supposed to be taken out from the ice basket itself.